Vehicles commonly come equipped with user interfaces that provide not only manual inputs (e.g., pushbutton switches) and visual and audio output, but that increasingly use speech-based inputs from a driver or other occupant to provide vehicle services. These services may include those carried out exclusively at and by the vehicle, or those which utilize a telematics service provider via a wireless telematics capability of the vehicle or via a personal mobile device such as a cellular phone carried by the driver or other occupant.
Telematics service providers are able to provide vehicle occupants with emergency and other assistance via a call center operation that typically includes a live advisor who carries out voice conversations with the vehicle occupant(s). In the vehicle, occupant speech is picked up within the passenger compartment via a microphone system that may include one or more microphones configured to received audio from one or more listening zones within the vehicle.